We’re now a little more than two weeks into the local news apocolypse. At least, that’s what those most immediately affected by the events we mused about earlier this month lamented when the first of Scripps’ local TV stations to wave bye-bye to human anchors took the action which NCS’ Michael P. Hill reported on shortly afterwards:
WMAR in Baltimore, Maryland, has begun airing some evening newscasts without live anchors as parent company E.W. Scripps expands a new production model built around prerecorded reports, streaming and reduced staffing. The ABC affiliate debuted the format Wednesday during its 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. Instead of anchors introducing stories from the studio, the programs opened with weather before moving through a series of prerecorded local reports and national stories produced by Scripps. Graphics connected segments, with occasional stretches of dead air before commercial breaks.
The change follows layoffs at WMAR and is part of a broader Scripps effort to move its local television operations toward a 24-hour streaming-focused news model. The company is introducing the format in about a dozen smaller markets, including Baltimore, before expanding it to more of its stations.
The hometown BALTIMORE BANNER ran an emotionally charged obituary penned by Shayla Colon that union activist Geoff Turner was decent enough to at least share the opening grafs of beyond its prohibitively expensive paywall:
No live anchors. No friendly banter between familiar newscasters. WMAR viewers on Wednesday night watched as Maryland’s oldest news station rolled out a new look to broadcasts that the station’s owners are expanding to cities nationwide. While the change to two evening broadcasts may be a minor adjustment for Baltimore area viewers, it highlights a major shift in how technology is reshaping local TV news.
But just before the paywall blocked further sharing I was able to observe the personal laments of longtime anchors such as 23-year station veteran Kelly Swoope and perky Megan Pringle. Pringle’s Facebook farewell was especially touching:
I moved to Baltimore to work at WMAR-2 News Baltimore. It was a struggling station then, which made it a challenging place to work, but it was a meaningful time in my life. It’s where I met my husband. It’s where I made lifelong friends…You cannot replace people with a format and call it an investment in local news. It kills connection to the community it is supposed to serve. What happens when something truly big happens? Something unexpected, complicated, heartbreaking or historic…how do you cover it without people?
I really do feel for the folks most directly impacted. But I also assume that at least at some point they knew exactly the degree of struggling that WMAR was defined by, and I’d further expect that someone like Swoope had at least some inkling of the details of the storied history of her employer. Suffice to say it’s been more than a substantial fall from grace from an erratic and now very distant past.
WMAR-TV was indeed the first station assigned to the market and first on the dial when the dial existed. It was once the home of both the NFL Colts and MLB’s Orioles, both during days when they were winning world’s championships. But it was never a strong local station apart from live sports, enough of a disappointment for CBS to drop them as an affiliate in 1981–fortunate at just about the time when NBC was beginning to become relevant again. But those prime-time pre-emptions for the Orioles drove NBC bonkers and had them frequently at odds with station ownership. When Scripps took over the station in the early 90s–a group heavily defined by ABC affiliations led by the one-time owned-and-operated powerhouse in Detroit–that leverage facilitated a swap where WMAR became one of the first stations in the country to affiliate with three different networks in 15 years. Just in time for the advent of regional sports networks and the Orioles leaving their air (right before they returned to the playoffs no less) and ABC’s plummeting to sometimes fourth in demographics . WMAR became what some parochially reference as a “dog with fleas”.
And not much has changed to alter the accuracy of that snark. They continued to let what they considered to be expensive albeit successful syndicated programming lapse, including at various times THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW, WHEEL OF FORTUNE and JEOPARDY! Those bulwarks were directly responsible for providing audience flow into their local news efforts, which deteriorated dramatically with every move. Add to that the overall aging and diminshing share of broadcast TV audience–as well as generational irrelevance among the “younger” adults and by last August the newscasts that Scripps made their guinea pigs this months competitively ranked as follows:
7 PM:
STATION PROGRAM P 18+ P 25-54
WBAL INSIDE EDITION 58,794 10,648
WBFF JEOPARDY! 43,051 10,150
WJZ LOCAL NEWS 33,453 8,752
WMAR LOCAL NEWS 10,652 2,091
11 PM (ALL LOCAL NEWS):
WBAL 38,447 5,886
WJZ 33,789 9,085
WBFF 16,584 6,733
WMAR 7,040 1,488
Woof and pass the flea medicine indeed.
So what’s happened in the early days of AI-witness news versus that exact same YAGO window? Looks like that flea-infested dog was merely biting man:
7 PM:
STATION PROGRAM P 18+ P 25-54
WBAL LOCAL NEWS 35,484 6,953
WBFF JEOPARDY! 47,291 11,703
WJZ LOCAL NEWS 28,337 7,121
WMAR LOCAL NEWS 9,150 1,738
11 PM (ALL LOCAL NEWS):
WBAL 32,884 5,554
WJZ 23,650 4,758
WBFF 13,488 4,793
WMAR 7.411 1,424
I’ll spare you the uploading into SQL. WMAR is competitively just as distant as they were and actually lost audience at 7 PM despite WBAL’s dropping of a top-rated entertainment newsmagazine over that time. And somehow at 11 PM they actually attracted a few hundred more statistically insignificant viewers over 50 without anchors than they did with. (Not that I’d go out on a limb and somehow try to show direct cause-and-effect. It is still Nielsen local market measurement). But trying to make this a cause celebre with this scorecard isn’t flying with me one whit.
Even if folks didn’t read the ratings they certainly saw the product. This video was from a 7 PM newscast from the week before the switch. Each episode led with a feature called the “Top 7 at 7”. On this August night those seven stories lasted just short of nine minutes. The live anchor appeared on camera for exactly five seconds.
If one couldn’t already see the handwriting on the wall from that alone, I’d contend they were not exactly the best example of a journalist out there in the first place.
Even in my limited experience with WMAR as a program supplier I was well aware of exactly how non-competitive they have been long before this. The Scripps group replaced WHEEL with a lamentably cheap play-from-home effort called LET’S ASK AMERICA that stubbornly lasted through three seasons before I foolishly bought a national window on Game Show Network for it that lasted exactly four episodes in prime time and delivered no better results for my employer than they did for WMAR. In my waning days at Sony our sales team connived them to becoming one of the few traditional “Big Three” affiliates to air the DR. OZ companion piece THE MEL ROBBINS SHOW in what on paper was a respectable time slot–3 PM on an ABC affiliate. I distinctly recall several instances where it scored a Blutarsky rating–zero point zero–and was outdelivered by digital subchannels airing it in the middle of the night.
I’d like to believe that a team player and seasoned veteran like Swoope knew all this at least as well as I did–hopefully better. In which case Miss Kelly riddle us this–what kept you around all this time? And were you somehow led to believe that your stoic presence was materially impacting anything other than your loyal work family?
Call me harsh and soulless if you will, but I’m no less a slave to numbers as anyone else in media today–and I dare say far less than the “data scientists” who now use AI models of their own to determine the fates of scripted streaming series. Back when the budget and opportunity may have existed a probe into that phenomeon might have been worth a five-part promotable series. But like most ships in the Inner Harbor, that sailed a long time ago.
And if one wants to really go back in time to find a signpost, why not get in touch with the now-retired and distinguished sports anchor Jerome Jurenovich, well-known as the face of local sports in Atlanta and a winner of eight local Emmy awards in the process. But if you recognize that name outside of that region you probably never saw his face. Because CNN HEADLINE NEWS never featured its sports anchors on camera–essentially using the same wipes and music beds that Scripps uses now. Back when AI stood merely for Allen Iverson. 
Sorry to tell you, but it’s never been set in stone that a newscast needs to have a face, especially when the evidence is overwhelming how little it truly matters to viewers. Which means no one should have been surprised to have seen what DCRTV’s Dan Lane shared last week:
During Tuesday morning’s Good Morning Maryland, the morning team said goodbye to viewers, raising expectations that the station is preparing to eliminate the traditional live anchor format from its morning newscasts as well.
I sure hope those laptops had a tab open to Indeed or Linked In. I’ve glanced at their numbers of late as well. Get out ahead of the inevitable for a chance, please?
Until next time…